


soembarrrazzzingdontrerad

by madeinchinainkorea



Category: riugor
Language: 中文-闽南话 臺語
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 08:00:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27847322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeinchinainkorea/pseuds/madeinchinainkorea





	soembarrrazzzingdontrerad

Trost, 845

**THE DAY WALL MARIA** fell to their wrath, a grim and brittle silence swept across mankind. It was a cruel reminder of the fear of oppression and the humiliation that they'd perpetually surrendered under their reign. _On that day humanity had remembered_...

August Klein had propped himself up against the wall and taking a long exhale, he tipped his head up to the sky and merely stared. It was a dull life, living in Trost - or any part of the walls, he presumed, knowing that almost every single city was filled with the same array of characters, the same sky above and the same walls perpetually shrouding them. He'd often wondered if he was slightly weird for craving that freedom that could be offered beyond the walls. August didn't want to get existential (and it wasn't like he could considering he was only ten) but lord, did he hate it here. Thinking to himself that if he were a bird like the ones currently flying overhead, he'd nosedive straight into the abyss past all this blandness and never return. 

"August!"

The boy jumped, a gasp trapping in his throat as he stared at his friend. "Hey! Were you even listening to me just then?" Mila Frey snapped, giving off a glare that indicated her best mate better had listened, _or else_.

He merely shrugged and cast away his gaze. "Erm... no, sorry. Say it again." 

"Wall Maria fell, like yesterday or something," Mila said with a crisp voice, not exactly sounding the slightest bit concerned that humanities sole protector had just fallen. It seemed she was shielded with that odd sort of innocence that nothing could touch them within the walls. "That mad bloke was shouting it down your street a while ago... came to tell you."

"Wall Maria _fell_?" August repeated, taking a moment or so to actually process what he'd just been told. 

She frowned at him, folding her arms. "Did you get whacked on the head or something? I literally just said so. Anyways, nobody wants to leave their house because they're scared of that the Titans are gonna hop over this wall or something, so we can run around the market without being shouted at by that fat cow that lives in that house on the corner."

Pushing himself from the stone behind him, August nodded and beckoned Mila to follow him in a hectic run towards the usually bustling marketplace. There were several of them dotted around the streets of Trost, all trading arrays of foods and clothes and there was always that one man who wondered between each vendor, attempting to sell his art. Considering the state of the rest of Trost, it was a rather nice, quaint place with little pitched tents and salespeople who'd let them off when they miscounted their allowance and were short on cash, simply because they were a friend, of a friend, of a friend.

That was another thing August had always been slightly irked about - everyone knowing everyone. There was not a single person who didn't at least have connections to _someone_. Everyone knew Dave, the drunkard, and Mila's mother, the baker, and Madam Taylor, the pug-faced woman that loathed the very sight of children. He longed for some sense of diversity, some sense of unknown between them. 

August really tried his best to ignore his thoughts as the duo made their way down the dirt path ahead.

He grinned to himself, hearing the pants and chants of Mila several steps behind him who'd been complaining about how he was running too fast and that she was about to flop dead. The pair skidded to a stop after spotting Madam Taylor just a few metres ahead, glaring fiercely at them and knowing she was about to have a right good guffaw with her lecture. 

"You fuckin' kids, messing around at a time like this! The Titans are moving towards us and you're running around like nothing's wrong! Both of you are ungrateful brats, it'd serve you right to get eaten by those monsters..."

Mila snorted to herself. "Fat ruddy cow, like she wouldn't be the first to go."

The pair of them barely managed to stifle a giggle before feigning some sort of guilt with a half-arsed apology and speeding past her. The faint cries of 'bastards' and 'little shits' fell on their deaf ears as their boisterous laughter echoed through the street, completely oblivious to the tension growing on something that was much bigger than either than them. It was moments like these that the desire for something more would fade into simple ignorant bliss - August appreciated this simpleness more than anything. 

* * *

Inner gate of Trost, 847

It was clear that the moment Mila Frey could recite her alphabet that she wanted to be rich - like filthy, bathing in a tub of rose petals and thick wads of cash as some servants fanned her with great big palm leaves, rich. To everyone around her, Mila simply looked like an idealistic fool who really should've had a Bible whacked into her head instead of 'being lured by the Devil's temptations'... but seriously, who wouldn't want to be unbelievably, stinking rich? She knew that it was better than any other rubbish that the sad people inside these walls were doing, or living out the rest of her life in Trost as some ruddy Housewife. Mila knew that it was slightly unconventional, if not maybe a bit impossible, but she had her smarts and determination and a slight knack for scamming the elderly out of a couple of coins, so who were they to shit on her dreams? 

Being honest, she had no fucking idea where to even begin with it all. Mila was just about as lost as Drunk Dave with all this bigger-life, better-dreams business. All she had was a fond goal and a hell-bent stubbornness that made her indisputably certain that one day, she would get the fuck out of here and begin relishing in her life of glittering jewels and enough three-course-meals a day to serve the entirety of Wall Rose. 

"You're thinking, aren't you?" August began, perching against the tree they sat under, still mesmerised by the parchment he'd picked up from the market days earlier. Mila hummed vaguely in his direction. "...about?"

Rolling back onto a wreath of flowers, Mila sighed and then said whimsically, " _Money_."

August merely snorted and shook his head. "Right yeah, 'course you are."

"Oi, August," Mila started after a brief pause, nudging his thigh to garner some attention. "What are you gonna do? Like y'know... about life and uh, stuff. You got anything planned, or something? Like are you gonna help out with-"

Before she even had the chance to finish, August had interrupted abruptly. "I'm joining the Military, Mila."

Mila sputtered and choked, furrowed her brows, then opened her mouth to speak before quickly deciding that her opinion was best left out of it, and bobbed it shut, wordlessly. 

"Ah." She wondered what on earth she could say next. That was an answer she most definitely was not expecting. She had known that August had wanted something more out of life, something _better_ than the Walls, and she'd assumed he'd say something the lines of being a pimp - but this... this was quite astonishing, to say the least. "Erm, what branch do you want to get into then?"

Not even a moment's hesitation, he replied, "the Survey Corps."

" _What_!?" 

“Yeah, that’s what I just said. You hit your head or something?” he asked, tilting his head and squinting down at Mila. “Anyways, the Survey Corps, yes. If I’m gonna die, I’d at least give it for the sake of humanity, y’know? Seems kinda pointless to wither away within the walls, doing nothing... plus, I’d look pretty damn good in the uniform, right?”

Mila gave out a dry chuckle and was nowhere near humourous. "Right, but like you're literally gonna die... if you're dead, that's the end of me. I don't wanna get all sappy and shit but, look at me! _Poof_! Gone forever, because if we're being honest, I don't think anyone likes us very much. So when you end up as titan shit, I'll be left to rot." Swooning her hand against her forehead and reenacted herself having a long and painful heart-attack.

He jabbed her arm and pulled Mila back up, before continuing. "Look, if you're that sad that I'm gonna die and leave you, join the Corps with me. At least then we can die together." He cooed and blew a very patronising kiss over at the girl.

"Oh, _sod off_. Besides, _me_? The ruddy _Survey Corps_? You're bloody insane, you know that? I'm not stupid enough to go on my own suicide mission," Mila rolled her eyes and began to pick under her nails. "I'd be perfectly suited for the Military Police, if anything... fat wallops of cash, a nice peaceful life and surrounded by riches until I drop dead at the grand old age of, uh, let's say thirty-two."

He snorted and stifled a laugh with his hand. "You sure you got the skills to get there?"

"I do! And you know what, I'll prove it to you when we go to training... together." Mila had certainly made up her mind quite quickly. If she was left in Trost, alone, with no prospects and no August, she'd disintegrate into the floor along with all the pigeon dung. And besides, the Military Police didn't sound like a bad way to start her journey to wealth and prosperity. Training couldn't be so hard at all, and even if everything went to shit, she could always pay her way in like those posh prats within Wall Sina. "Then we can become soldiers or something. At least then I'll be the first to be informed of your inevitable death and plan your funeral _wayy_ before any of this sad lot get their hands on it. Imagine your headstone: August Klein, biggest idiot within the walls and eaten by a titan after flopping miserably in battle like a wet-dishcloth in battle."

August sent over an unimpressed glare, then turned to stare into the distance beyond the hill they sat in. " _Har, har, har_. I don't find you very funny."

Mila smiled to herself, stretched her limbs then rose to her feet. "Yeah, yeah, you just can't handle the absolute mass of my funniness. Now, let's get outta here. I really got to go toilet and none of the old hags round here are going to let us use theirs."

"Alright, damn," August said, pushing himself off of the tree he leaned against and trailing behind her as they made their way down the dirt path and back into the city. 

* * *

There was a tense sort of silence surrounding that night August had finally decided on telling his parents that he was in fact, going to join the Military. Apparently, Mila had casually mentioned it to her parents after dinner and they'd begrudgingly accepted it with no further argument. To be fair, August had always expected that sort of reaction out of Mila and her parents - she'd always had an odd way of smoothly getting out of anything before it even escalated in the first place. So August honestly hoped he could pull everything together and discuss it _maturely_ and that nothing would go wrong.

He swirled his spoon around his bowl, staring into the beige sight with an expression he hoped could mask all his feelings on this topic. August pursed his lips together and pushed a crouton from one side of the bowl to another with a long scrape from the metal. God, this was unbearably awkward. He couldn't just sit there and procrastinate around this all - it was either now or never, as frankly, he wasn't sure if he could muster up the nerve to do it ever again. 

August cleared his throat and sucked in a sharp breath. Across the table from him, Thomas Klein rose his head from his own soup, looked over at his wife and then over to his son. 

"So... the, erm, Military, huh?" August began, ending with a drawled stiff chuckle.

Thomas Klein quirked up a brow, looked deep in thought for a moment and returned to his soup.

His mother, Julie, showed a glance of confusion and slurped her soup before finally addressing her son. "Yes, what about it, August?"

"Well, I - uhm..." August couldn't bring himself to even sputter it out. He was quaking with fear, more so than when he'd thought about being torn to pieces like some chicken wing by a titan. 


End file.
